Sunday, April 21. 2013

As I was heading back to the cabin just now to put Zoe down for a nap, we happened to pass the blue stairs at just the right moment. The patients were all coming inside from their time on Deck Seven, and the first little face I saw belonged to Kadiatu. We stopped to say hello and shared an enthusiastic handshake with her papa, who (of course) loudly proclaimed my nickname to the passing crowd. Ali Tumba!

As the patients passed by, one after the other, we formed our own little baby receiving line right there at the top of the stairs going down to Deck Five. Smiles brightened each face as they caught sight of Zoe, and one by one, each one reached out to hold her hand or touch her cheek while she accepted their love with wide eyes and a few tired smiles of her own.

There were many happy faces when I confirmed that, yes, she was in fact my baby. One man requested that I give her to him so he could take her home, but since I'd never seen him before I figured it wasn't the best idea. Another woman gave Zoe's cheek a good squeeze and then reached down to do the same to my left boob, nodding her solemn approval before continuing on down the stairs. I'm really not sure whether it was cheek or chest that she found so satisfactory, but the interaction was pretty much par for the course for me and West Africa.

Towards the end of the group came Fodi and Marietou, two of the patients you prayed for during the twenty-four hour prayer vigil a month ago. Fodi said hello in English, something he's been learning during his time on the wards, and I heard Marietou's voice for the first time since her trach was removed when she greeted us quietly in French, her eyes smiling above her new nose.

The last of them disappeared down towards Deck Three, and Zoe and I turned the corner into our own cabin, full of the love that the people here share so effortlessly.

Saturday, July 2. 2011

Sometimes coming home looks like this, like a room full of sunshine and breakfast brought to me by the dear HoJ before my feet ever touch the ground.

It's not Bolivia, and it's nothing like the adventures that we could have had there, but it's home. It's familiar and comforting, and long days of sun and rest are going to make this better. They have to. Because there's a ticket to Sierra Leone with my name on it dated exactly three months from today, and I am fully planning on being on that plane.

Until then, I'll see doctors and wait for test results and rest in the beauty of summer, in the promise of days spent lounging by the side of our friends' pool and nights enjoying pizza fresh off the barbecue while fireflies brighten the dusk, one spark at a time.

Thursday, May 6. 2010

I know I talked about Audrey yesterday, but I have to mention her again, because she inadvertently ended up causing what might have been my favourite part of this entire week.

She wrote me an e-mail today, and one part of it rang so true with my experience here.

Man bears within himself a dignity he cannot lose, for he is created in the image of God. We all share this dignity, regardless of religion, race, or creed, and so we shelter one another, seeing Christ in every woman and every man.

I've thought this so many times before, just not in such simplicity. But it's so true. This afternoon, amidst the clamor of twenty patients, nineteen caregivers, three extra babies, and a whole lot of nurses, I realized all over again just how relevant those words are to our life here. We are the shelter for these kids; the wards are a sanctuary where, maybe for the first time, they can run and play and not worry about anyone laughing at them. No one shies away because the kid in the next bed over had her nose and ear and eye burned off in a fire. They just pass over the crayons and hold up their own bandaged limbs for inspection, because really, we're all broken, aren't we?

And then I got to the part where Audrey told me what to say to Aissa, who's finally been having a couple of spectacularly good days after a couple of spectacularly horrible ones. I pulled her onto my lap and delivered the message on the screen. Audrey says 'Hi.' Also, she says, 'I love you.' After thinking about that for a moment, Aissa turned to where she could look at me through her good eye, pointed right at my heart and shouted back at me at the top of her lungs.

I LUB you!

And then she rested her bandaged cheek on my chest, put her arms around me and said it again, quieter this time. I lub, lub, lub you. I lub you, while my heart threatened to burst into a thousand pieces and go spinning into every corner of the ward.

She has no idea what she's saying yet, but I've learned how to say it in Fulfulde, and so we're going to teach her the cry of all our hearts. We're going to tell anyone who will listen.

We love you, each one of you who comes up our gangway with all your hurts and all your fears. We see the image of God in your scarred faces. We see the Carpenter hands of Christ in your twisted fingers, His feet in your bent ones. We love you and we want to throw our arms around you and let that love break through your pain. We want to shelter you here.

Tuesday, May 4. 2010

I'm sad right now. O'Brien's going has left a bigger hurt in my heart than I thought it would at first. I keep thinking about him, about his poor, broken mama going home with empty arms. I can't stop replaying those last few moments of his life while he slipped away and we just watched him go. I still have the photos of him on my computer, and I keep stumbling across them and a wave of pain just washes over me again.

And then yesterday. I heard my name shrieked from the ward where they were doing a surgical screening, and I stuck my head in to see Antoinette, a patient from last year in Benin. I sat down to talk with them, as far as we can talk with my few words in Fon and her few words in French. We hadn't been there long when mama beckoned over a translator. We usually muddle along just fine without one, so I wondered what she needed to tell me.

She spoke a short sentence or two, and the translator turned to me with no preamble, nothing to prepare my poor, bruised heart. She says that baby from last year died. I think the one named Maomai? No explanation, no other information. Just a baby who was fat and happy and smiling in my arms the last time I saw her, and now for some unknown reason, has died.

I don't even really know what to write. I'm sad and I'm discouraged, and I can't see my way forward through all this. I know I won't stop loving; that's not an option. But if loving means I get hurt like this, I have to be honest - it's hard. It's hard to know that giving my heart to a baby here in West Africa means there's something like a thirteen percent chance of that child dying before it reaches its fifth birthday. (To put it in perspective, in the States, it's more like 0.78 percent. Not even close.)

How can I love in the face of all that? How can I just open up my heart and invite the pain that's almost certain to come?

I guess it's because Maurius went home yesterday. Fat and happy and smiling in his mama's arms, and before he went, we stood in a circle and we prayed over him. Prayed that he would be the one to prove all those statistics wrong. God, not another Maomai. Not another O'Brien. Let this one live. Let him live.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I saw an image of an old man, sitting on a wooden bench, children scattered at his feet, asking him for their favourite story. And so Old Man Maurius smiles and tells them the story all over again, the one where God saves his life and he grows up fat and happy, smiling and holding his grandchildren in his arms.

I don't know if that's really what God has in store for Maurius or if it's just the cry of my own selfish heart that can't bear to hear more bad news. I do know that it's what He wants for Maurius, for each one of these precious children of His. And I know that He's entrusted me the task of loving them while they're here.

Monday, March 15. 2010

This morning, in the corner of A Ward, a little baby smiled at me. Not a huge accomplishment, you might think, since I'm goofy enough that there are very few babies in Africa who won't give me a grin, given enough time and stickers. For this baby, though, it was more of an effort. His top lip just barely moved, held in place by the steri-strips covering a neat row of sutures. The smile was fleeting, the smallest of moments, but his mama saw it and turned to me, her eyes full of wonder.

Konu, she whispered to me, hardly believing that her little broken boy was learning to smile like all the rest of them. A smile. She grabbed my hand and held it tight, gazing at her son who lay on the bed in a pile of blankets, kicking his legs contentedly. She let go after a while, and started to pack her things.

And so, once again, life comes full circle. The little baby who met us on the dock when we arrived (see his tiny little legs?) was back out there today, resting in my arms again. Only this time, he didn't feel like he was going to float away. This time, I noticed the weight of him, felt his soft, round cheek squished against my arm and the rolls of his legs in my hands. This time, instead of a lip split wide, his nose sits atop a perfect, unbroken line.

His mama climbed into the car first and turned immediately, holding out her arms for her baby, her face alight with the promise of new life. I relinquished Francois willingly into those arms because I knew that her heart was as new as her joy.

Just a few days ago, the nurse asked a question of the mama who had tried to leave her baby boy in an orphanage, afraid of his split lip, afraid that she couldn't live with a broken baby. What will you do, she asked. What will you do when you go home? And Pirette, her smile small, revealed that life had won, that hope had finally found a place in her heart.

I want to take him home.

In this season of Lent, I think that mama's words are so much more profound than she will ever know. Isn't that exactly what God said to all of us over two thousand years ago? Isn't that what held our Saviour to the cross while thousands of angels waited with bated breath for Him to ask for it to stop? I sit here, centuries after the fact, and in a mama's words I hear God speak to my heart and it's a revelation all over again.

I want to take you home. I will risk everything to do it. I don't care that you're still a little bit broken. See? I have started to mend you. I have started to make you whole, and I won't stop until you're perfect. I just want to take you home.

Pirette and Francois will come back at the end of the outreach for Francois to have his final surgery, the one to close the hole in the roof of his mouth, the surgery that will finally make him whole again. And until that day and for the rest of her life, that mama will love him with a love that has won out over death.

Friday, December 4. 2009

It's been silent around here, I know. For probably the first time, I make no apologies. Truth be told, there's not much to say. The wards are quiet, the beds folded and stacked, strapped to metal bolts screwed into the floor. Every surface has been washed down twice. Every surface, including ceilings. (I'm six feet tall; I'll give you three guesses on who got to work on that little project.) We sit around on rogue mattresses that escaped the piles and we talk about all that's happened this outreach. We scrub until our knuckles bleed. We laugh together, and we pray together, and this is how we end the year.

I was walking down the hallway with one of the nurses the other day who said it felt like the end of school. The time where your teachers are just giving you busy work to fill the hours until that final bell rings and you're free for two glorious months of summer. We hand out jobs like candy; empty that cabinet, scan those files, scour that floor. And all we're really doing is waiting for the time the Captain will come on the loudspeakers and let us know that the Pilot is on board. That we're throwing off the lines and setting sail.

That time is coming soon, but until then, we have this time stop and reflect. After a hectic ten months where we practically doubled the number of surgeries from last year, we've finally got time to catch our collective breath. And that's exactly what we've been doing. The nurses spent the day off ship at the pool. We called it Team Building, but as far as I can tell, this is one team that's already standing on a solid foundation.

So when I sit here in my cabin, the lights finally on again after yet another day of blackout while the technical crew (HoJ included) worked feverishly to ready the ship for sailing, all I can see is that foundation, that crazy call that made each of us leave everything to come here. A few of the nurses noticed my tattoo today, and when I quoted the verse it comes from, I knew from their faces that the same Love drew them here, too.

The Love that has us dancing on the wards when ladies go home dry. The Love that sees us through the dark days when babies go back to Jesus. The Love that opens pockets and hearts to give money so a mama with a broken baby can buy a new cow. The Love that lets nurses from across the world work together without strife. The Love that causes an Aunty to care for an orphaned baby with no thought to her own wants. The Love that has us on our knees, scrubbing until our backs ache, laughing the whole time. The Love that brought each patient to us, and the Love that saw them home again.

That's the Love that will fill me again each time I pour myself out.

If your pour out your soul on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will be like noonday. (Isaiah 58:10)

Wednesday, September 23. 2009

In all my excitement about my startling pink pedicure, I forgot to tell you that BabyHubie's family came to visit yesterday.

Shortly after my polish had dried and it was safe for me to wander around the wards again without smearing pink everywhere, I headed over to the office to pick up some papers I had printed. I saw Suey and stopped to say hello when I noticed the small family clustered around her. Mama, Papa, Pauline and their oldest child, a serious boy of six. The mama's face lit up when she saw me, and I went to give her a hug. As soon as I was within range, Pauline reached for me. I gathered her into my arms and her little hands threaded around my neck while she nestled her head into the corner of my shoulder. We gathered up all the nurses we could find who knew them and had a little reunion right there in the hallway. Mama's eyes were still a little shattered, but she leaned into our hugs and threw her arms around us and held on tight.

As I was getting ready to head back into the ward to finish my work for the shift, Hubie's papa grabbed my hand one last time. Through a translator he told us thank you. You are blessed, you people. You are blessed because you took care of my son. We will not forget what you did for our family. Thank you. I smiled to myself, realizing that it was the first time I had heard him refer to Hubert that way. My son, he had said. My son. A child unmarked by the scars that carve mirrored gashes in the cheeks of his other two children, but his son nonetheless.

And then we unwound Pauline from around our necks and she went willingly back into her mama's arms, snuggling in there just as comfortably as she ever had with us, and I knew that we had won. For all the days that I wondered whether or not we were making a difference for that family, yesterday I saw the truth.

So if the only reason this ship came to Benin this year was so that Hubie could come to us and die with us, I think it's enough. It's enough because a papa speaks of his son, not the boy. It's enough because there's a little girl who can rest her head on her mama's shoulder and know that she's going to be okay, a little girl who can climb into those arms and trust that she will find love there.

Tuesday, August 18. 2009

I saw Maomai yesterday. I had wandered down to the wards to drop off some papers, and the charge nurse greeted me with a smile. Maomai's here. Pelagie, her mama, had her back to me, so I snuck up behind her and threw my arms around her shoulders. She responded in her characteristic fashion; she jumped up and down, yelled some random English words, hugged me and grabbed my butt. C'est beaucoup! she assured me, in case I had forgotten in the time since I had last seen her. I looked around for the baby, and Pelagie caught my look. She grinned proudly and pointed across the wards to where another nurse was holding a little brown baby in what I assumed was a very big blanket.

It turns out I was wrong. It wasn't the blanket that was big; it was Maomai. I took her in my arms, startled by the weight of her, solid and substantial where she used to be all tiny bones and loose skin. Her hair is coming in all curly, and her cheeks are growing at an astounding rate. They're almost symmetrical now, with little pink scars the only reminder of the enormous tumor that used to distort her face. Her thighs are a mass of rolls and her fingers are dimpled and round. She's crossed over from death to life in every way imaginable.

When Maomai was just a tiny baby, her mama had a dream. In that dream, she recounts, I saw a person, who told me I should be quiet and pray; that salvation shall come. Yesterday, as I held her and felt my arms getting tired from the weight of her body, free from tumors and tubes, I knew that the salvation Pelagie had dreamed about had come. Not just for Maomai, but also for her mama.

She should have abandoned her baby, given her up for lost when that mass started to take over Maomai's face. Her culture told her that her child was worthless, a burden, better off dead, and for such a long time we were so afraid that her culture would win. We fought back our frustrations while we tried in vain to rouse a sleeping Pelagie for nighttime feedings. We watched in dismay as she retreated into herself, unwilling even to change her baby's diapers, and we thought we had lost again. Lost to a fatalistic system with roots far deeper than we can understand. Lost to a darkness that we so often feel so powerless to overcome.

And then, almost before we realized it was happening, the light came back to Pelagie's eyes. She took charge of her baby's life, patiently mixing bottles and learning how to manage a gastric tube and cooing back when Maomai smiled and gurgled.

In a place where we lose so often, where the darkness feels like it's everywhere, it's no wonder that I stood there with that fat little baby in my arms and I cried. I cried because hope is real, because love is real, because salvation, at least for this tiny family, is so very real. As real as the little baby who laid in my arms, staring up at me while I cried and laughed and danced with her mama.

And Pelagie, understanding my tears, came close to my side. In a rare moment of tenderness, she threaded her arm gently around my waist and kissed me on the cheek.

Thank you, she said, looking up at me with the same quiet expression as the one on her daughter's face. Thank you.

Monday, December 29. 2008

The last few days have been so intense. I find myself exhausted by about nine in the evening, worn out by the constant interactions, by my attempts to navigate myself through this world that's supposed to be mine. By finding my way again.

Some of it has been easy. More and more, I find that this blog is such a useful tool; because people have been reading my words all year, there's almost nothing they need to ask me. I've been able to pick up friendships where they left off, and when questions arise about Liberia, I can say Remember those entries about Baby Greg? Yeah, that was the hardest thing that happened this year. I drove home from my Granny's house the other night, the first time I'd been behind the wheel in eleven months, and it was surprisingly painless; it turns out that remembering how to drive is like riding a bike. You never really forget.

Some of it has been less straightforward. The noise and the cold and the constant stimulation are so foreign to me after a year on a ship in the third world. I'm getting carsick again, and I think it's because I strain to read all the billboards and street signs that whip past me at over a hundred kilometers an hour. I've already started to feel the strain of this culture, reminding me in subtle whispers that I look wrong. No matter how staunchly I remind myself that I am proud of my African shape, I've been feeling pudgy and oversized, and I can't convince myself otherwise.

The thing is, none of this confusion and uncertainty really has any kind of hold on me. Especially not after today.

This morning, I took a drive past icy lakes and up a snowy road. We stopped at the side of a river and made our way onto a bridge overlooking the water as it rushed down the chute that he had helped build to guide the logs downstream. The air smelled faintly of summer, somehow, recalling memories of long hours spent playing in the waterfalls near my grandpa's farm. He pulled four tie wraps out of his pocket, and he asked me the question I've been dying to hear.

So, you want to get married?

I said I thought we might as well, and then I chose green, like he knew I would. He threw the other three over the side of the bridge to be washed away in the freezing spate. He fastened the tie wrap around my finger, clipped the end with a pair of wire cutters he pulled out of his pocket, and then he took my hand in his. We stood there on that bridge with the cold all around us and the water rushing through my heart, and he prayed over our life together.

And then we went back, and I showed off my fancy ring to my beaming parents and he took an Exacto knife to it to smooth out the edges, and I have never known that it was possible to be quite this happy.

(For those of you who have never heard of this guy before, the oversight has been intentional. We both agreed that our relationship wasn't something that we wanted to chronicle on the internet, but I've gotten special permission to post about today, since there's no way I can keep this to myself.)

Phil is my best friend. He's been by my side through the hardest year of my life so far. He rubs my back when I cry and shakes his head when I'm hysterically laughing. When something funny happens, he's the first one I want to share the joke with. We can hang out for hours, not do anything, and love it. He believed me when I told him I didn't want an expensive engagement ring, and I know that means he trusts my word. When I'm sick, he cooks me Ramen noodles, and when we come inside he holds the door for me. He'll eat the mushrooms for me that I always feel the need to pick out of my food. He calls me out when I'm being lazy and challenges me in my walk with God. I never feel like I have to be anything but myself with him and yet, somehow at the same time, being with him makes me want to serve more and love more and be more.

It was Phil's sleeve I was hanging on to that first day in Tenerife, and it's that sleeve I get to hang on to for the rest of my life, no matter what comes our way.

Which, at the end of the day, is just about the best deal I can imagine.

Wednesday, December 3. 2008

Well, while we all sit around and wait for me to learn how to write code (which could potentially take the rest of my life, just to warn you) I think it's only fair to update you on the ever-dwindling patient situation on the wards. Ward, I should say, since we only have B Ward open at the moment. Actually, if we're going to split hairs, I should probably mention that only one side of B Ward is open, and half of that one side is already torn down and packed away.

We only have three patients left.

The most amazing part is to watch our prayers being answered right in front of our eyes. We started praying, and Louise's wounds dried up. She went home yesterday, healed. We started praying, and Sedeke's infection was also healed. He went home yesterday, too, clutching a new Bible that he refused to stop reading. We started praying, and we were able to arrange for Jacob to be transferred to a hospital up country, near where he and his mother live. He too left yesterday. We started praying, and Kwelywoh went back to the operating room one last time, just like he's been doing every few days for the last couple weeks. Only this time, Dr. Gary found the place where the brain fluid was leaking out. He patched it and ran a thin plastic catheter under Kwelywoh's skin from a spot between his eyes to drain into the space around his stomach. We're still waiting to see how Kwelywoh will adjust to the new pressures inside his head, but with all the other answered prayers we've just received, it's hard to think this one won't go our way too.

Eddie and Kwelywoh and Timothy. That's it. They're the last of an endless string of stories that stretches back over these past ten months, woven together like so many threads of this cloth. Hope and heartbreak and healing and pain. I can stand back, now, so close to the end, and see it all as one.

Monday, November 24. 2008

It seems that Harold has some kind of radar when it comes to my bad days. Last week, just when I needed a hug, Harold missed me enough to convince his mama to catch a car and come see me. Yesterday was another less-than-perfect day. Despite scenes like little Isaiah and his water-gulping frenzy, the shift wasn’t great. I seem to have caught the ship-wide case of bronchitis, and I spent much of the day doubled over, trying to cough my lungs out. (The hidden blessing in which is the fact that I think I’ll have a well-defined six pack if this keeps up for another day or two.) And just when I thought my body hurt enough, a combative patient wrapped himself around my neck and pulled just the right way, enough to cause an old back injury to flare up in a finger-numbing blaze of glory.

I was sitting at the computers feeling sorry for myself when a crew member appeared with a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. One of your patients is looking for you. Hawa? Hara? I’m not really sure. He held out the paper, and I recognized my name in Harold’s father’s handwriting. He had come back again, and his smile beamed up at me just as wide as I loped down the gangway. I greeted him and his mama and settled down to chat.

Not long into our visit, with Harold just barely starting to talk, she motioned to a black plastic bag that was resting next to my feet. We bring something for you. That plastic; it’s for you. I tried gently to protest, since the bag was bulging with gifts, but she cut me short. I beg you! We need to say thank you. An Harold choose the bananas his self.

I started to unpack the bag. The first thing I pulled out was a smaller plastic that held a whole bunch of bananas. Harold grinned at me, proud in his produce-picking skills. Next came three little bags of plantain chips. They’re crunchy and salty and just a little sweet and they’re easily my favourite snack here in Liberia. Whenever I leave the ship, I make sure I’ve got 5LD bills in my pockets, just in case I come across a little girl with a tray of treats balanced on her head.

The last gift was the biggest. I pulled out a handful of green cloth and unfolded a dress, complete with a smaller piece of fabric to be used as a head wrap. The dress is a standard Liberian garment; they look like muumuus and fit like potato sacks. And when they’re given to you as a gift, they’re generally big enough that all your roommates could take shelter under your cover in a hard rain. Harold’s family had clearly put thought into this bag of gifts, though. Harold pa get you a different one, but I never let him give it to you. I tol’ him no way, it the wrong size. It were too big for you, even though you got the Loma shape.

To say that I was touched by their generosity would be an understatement. As we get closer and closer to sailing, everyone around us has become increasingly demanding. They know that we’ll soon be gone, and so patients and friends and strangers on the street are taking their last opportunities to ask for the things they assume we can provide. It’s draining, and it gives us all an uncomfortable sense of being used. For Harold and his family to show me such love, asking nothing in return, was the most welcome breath of fresh air.

The rest of our visit passed in the usual style. Harold recited a couple Bible verses for me, along with with mama’s cell phone number. He was rather clearer on the phone number, but I give him style points for his classically Liberian rendition of James 4:8. Dress close to God so He can dress close to you. At one point, Harold’s mama got annoyed with him for his refusal to talk to me and addressed him sternly as Peace. When she saw my quizzical look, she laughed and explained. Peace his yard name. Harold jus’ the name he can carry to school. She went on to give me a lesson in Liberian naming. It turns out that everyone has a yard name, the name everyone knows them by. When it comes time for school, they are given another, more official name, the one that will appear on all their documents.

Josephine, Harold’s mama (whose real name is actually Siah), was pregnant with Harold/Peace in 2005, while the war was still raging in Liberia. She told me matter-of-factly about the rebels closing the port, barricading the roads and preventing supplies from coming through. By the time I were ready to get my baby, I were paying 100LD for one cup of rice. If I could even find the rice. It were not easy. The day the United Nations rolled into town, breaking the barricade and reopening the port, Josephine went into labor and delivered her child. That why he name Peace. Because that day the peace come.

Harold has certainly lived up to his yard name as he cements his place in my life, appearing just when I need love and encouragement and peace in my heart. Josephine said it best. She was talking about the perfection of all the gifts they had brought me (if you can call a potato sack perfect, which I most certainly did), but I think I'll pretend she was talking about everything. This boy, this year, this life of mine.

Sunday, November 16. 2008

My best friend here on the ship left today to go home for three weeks. While I can't begrudge anyone their time off, especially knowing how much I'm looking forward to my own in a few short weeks, I found myself feeling rather lost and forlorn this afternoon. I was sitting in bed reading a book when I got a call from the gangway. There's a patient here to see you. Since it's Sunday and I wasn't working and definitely not in a good mood, I thought about telling them to go away. I figured it was some random Liberian who got my name from a former patient and was here to tell me about their cousin's neighbor who has a tumor. Someone else I would have to say no to. The guard upstairs continued. His name is ... Harold. That was all I needed; I grabbed my slippers and headed for the dock.

Harold was one of my patients last week. He wasn't really sick; all the patients from here until the end of the outreach (I can say that now, since it's only three weeks away) are less complicated cases. Harold is a beautiful six-year old boy who recently started getting teased at school. His gums were swelling and sometimes they would bleed a little bit, so he would come home crying to his mama because the other kids laughed at him and wouldn't play with him. They were screened at a dental clinic and came to the ship for a simple surgery to correct the problem.

Harold was quiet the day he and his caregiver, his father, were admitted; I don't think he said a single word to me. Just beamed up at me with a huge, lopsided smile as I found balloons and coloring books and Jenga blocks for him to play with. It doesn't take much to cement a friendship with a six-year old, and by the time he went to the operating room the next day, we were good buddies. That served me well after his surgery, when I found it remarkably easy to convince him to take his medicines, finish his dinner and hold still while I took out his IV. Except for some confusion with a visitor card and a less-than-friendly encounter with his mother, Harold and his father were perfect patients. They went home the next day, and I couldn't imagine what they were doing on the dock.

When I appeared at the top of the gangway, little Harold caught sight of me and his face lit up like Christmas. I ran down the steps (carefully of course, in case the safety officer happens to be reading this) and he threw his arms around my waist. I sat down and gathered him into my lap, grateful for the hug I'd just been thinking I wanted. His mama sat by his side, beaming. We chatted about Harold and about how much she regretted being surly the other day. She shared with me that I have what's known as a Lomo Shape, after the Lomo tribe, renowned for, you guessed it, their wide hips and large bottoms. We even talked about the weather for the customary small while, and then I asked her why she had come. Her smile got even wider.

Ever since he come home, Harold been missing his White Aunty! He just telling us about the ship and he say he missing you and he wan' see you. So we catch car from Painseville and we tol' them your name at the gate and so they say we can come to see you. Harold just sat on my lap, his head nestled into the corner of my neck, not saying a word.

Painesville is a good forty-five minutes away from the ship, and you have to take two different taxis to get here. Factor in the time spent waiting at the side of the road and possible breakdowns, and it's a journey that can take up to three hours. Each way.

They had no agenda. They didn't ask me for money or food or a ticket to America. Harold's mama had been feeling guilty about being snappy with us, and so when Harold said he was missing me, she piled them both into a taxi and headed over to make it right. We talked for a long time about social dynamics in Liberia, how everyone's trying to get on top, and no one on top looks down to help those below them. When it came out that I'm not getting paid to work here, that I'm actually paying crew fees so that I can do this work, she almost fell off her chair. What she said will stay with me for a while.

You people are really different. I come to the ship and everybody smile at me. You abandon your homes. You abandon your families, and you come to us in Liberia. And I see the way you all can love. And that is how I know you are Christians. This is God's work here.

I choked back the tears that were threatening my composure and invited them to come inside for the evening church service that was about to start. Harold shook his head, still without saying a word; apparently the memory of surgery was too fresh. So, less than half an hour after they had arrived, Harold and his mama got up to leave, their mission to visit with me accomplished.

I walked with them to the gate, Harold's small hand firmly clutching mine. When I turned to leave, I knelt down to give him one last hug. His arms went around my neck, and his mouth found my ear to whisper the only words he would say during the entire visit.

Sunday, September 7. 2008

His wrist was bitten by a snake a while ago and healed in a frozen mass of scar tissue. We had him with us at the beginning of the outreach; he was one of my balloon party friends. And now he's back, because he has infected ulcers on that arm that just wouldn't heal.

He endures two dressing changes every day. Ten minutes of his arm being soaked in vinegar while he winces and yelps and then comes back to the ward proclaiming cheerfully, They finish changing bandage. My hand bettah nah. I wan' stickah. I wan' go outside. I love you very much, Good Charge Nurse.

He never stops loving.

The plastic surgeon will be here for two more weeks. We have fourteen days to get rid of his infection (an infection that has lived on his arm for months) or else the doctor won't be able to do the surgery to release his wrist back into a normal position.

And whether or not he ever gets that surgery, we'll keep changing his bandages, and he'll keep slipping his twisted hand into mine as he throws his good arm around my head to pull my face close for yet another kiss.

Wednesday, August 6. 2008

It's hard to know what to say when faced with the death of a baby. What can I possibly offer to a mother who has just lost her heart? What words can I say that will blunt the searing pain? And what comfort can I give when that mama is faced with the sight of her son's bed, occupied by another small, brown baby, one who is sitting up and smiling at the world around him?

Marion came to visit me today. She's something of a celebrity around here, and it took me almost fifteen minutes just to get her down the stairs to the hospital as almost everyone we passed stopped to say hello. As we walked down the hall towards B Ward, she was all smiles, laughing and greeting her friends, nurses, translators and disciplers. It was only when we were inside amidst the bustle of a full ward that the flood of memory overwhelmed her. I stood there with my arm around her tiny shoulders as tears coursed silently down her cheeks. She turned twenty-one yesterday. She's a child herself, and yet she stood there, mute and small, mourning the loss of her third baby.

We turned away and went upstairs to eat lunch. We sat at a table by the window as she pushed the rice around her plate and told us about a dream she'd had. In it, she was out walking. Or working. She wasn't quite sure. People came up to her one after another and told her what a fine baby she had. Asked her how he was. She repeated to them over and over that she didn't have a baby. That he had died.

No, they said, he's right there. He's right there on your back. That was a good dream, we agreed.

Bendu, the sassy-pants who was burned after she had a seizure and knocked over her kerosene lamp, was back for a dressing change in our outpatient clinic. She and Marion became close while Baby Greg was still with us, so when Bendu's appointment was finished I signed her back in as my visitor too. We passed the rest of the afternoon like any silly twenty-something year old friends. We wandered around the ship, ate grilled cheese at the cafe, tried to call friends in Canada and hung out in my room for a while, laughing and filming video messages on my camera.

Weeks ago, as we stood by Baby Greg's bedside, watching him fight to breathe, Bendu told me that she was very sad. I asked her why, and she went on to tell me that she was going to be alone for the rest of her life. She didn't meet my eyes as she gently touched the warped, pink skin of her cheek and forehead. Quiet tears filled her eyes and as she explained that no man would want to marry her, not given the way she looks. So I will be alone. That is what makes me very sad.

Marion is a woman living under the shadow of curse. The longer I spend here in West Africa, the more aware I become of the reality of spiritual warfare. It's easy to be in my comfortable room and scoff at the idea that words could have such an effect on someone's life. But then I leave this room and go out and sit with Marion in her house and I am utterly convinced that this battle is so much bigger and so much more intangible than I could have imagined.

Given all this, I was struck today at how normal the day was. I think I expect women who have lost babies and been terribly disfigured by burns to be somehow different. More sedate, more aware, in a way, of the cloud surrounding them. But apart from the small moments when they retreat into themselves, lost in worlds of pain I can only guess at, Marion and Bendu are you and I and any woman ever. They're maybe more broken, a little more shattered, but underneath the scars and shining through the tears, I can so clearly see their love.

welcome!

I'm Ali, wife to Phil and mama to Zoe and Ethan. We spent the past 6 years living and working with Mercy Ships on board the world's largest non-governmental hospital ship, the M/V Africa Mercy, as nurse, electrician, and ship's baby respectively. On board the ship, we worked with a team of volunteers from over thirty different countries, providing free surgical care and healthcare development, bringing hope and healing to the forgotten poor in West and Central Africa.

In March of 2014, during a routine ultrasound, we found out that our son, Ethan, has a four-in-a-million condition known as heterotaxy. He has major congenital heart defects, and had his first open heart surgery before he was a week old. Although the future for our son and our family is uncertain, we are more than ever convinced that God will be faithful to lead and guide us through this new season the same way He has in the past.(I've had a big problem with spam comments around here and literally don't have the time to sort through all of them, so comments on all entries before Ethan's story began have been turned off to keep the numbers down. I moderate all comments on new entries, so don't worry if yours doesn't show up right away. If it won't let you post, please e-mail me at alirae[at]quist[dot]ca. I love hearing from you!)

ali (that's me!)

phil

zoe rae

ethan vikash

ethan's story

Due on the Fourth of July and born on Canada Day, Ethan has given us so much to celebrate. He had his first surgery when he was six days old and amazed the doctors by being ready to go home before he reached the two week mark. Heterotaxy can affect every organ system, but so far Ethan seems to have escaped some of the common complications. While his heart has a number of complex defects, it's working well so far. His intestines actually formed correctly, and his lungs and kidneys are all functioning well. He does have at least five spleens, and it's assumed that they do not function, so his immune system is most likely compromised; he will most likely be taking daily antibiotics for his whole life.

Here are a few links that might be helpful, since the medical side of things can get pretty confusing with a heart this special. The surgeries listed for each of his heart conditions don't necessarily apply in our case, since we have to look at the big picture, not just each individual defect; we're still waiting to see how his heart grows before we decide what the next step, which will probably taking place between 3-6 months, will be.